The Sun Came Up Upon The Left

Credit for this post must be delivered to my friend Geoffrey, who has a very good ear for quality music. I was unaware of this black metal band out of Portland, Oregon, until he was kind enough to link me to their bandcamp page last week, where I discovered the horrific splendor of The Sun Came Up Upon the Left. There are two albums there for you to check out - their self-titled 2008 demo, and their full-length album, titled And the Dreams so Rich in Color from last year, both of which were self-released.

This is black metal with a grim, sinister atmosphere. The productions is good, but it still possesses a cold darkness on par with the best in the genre.The songwriting is top notch, as the songs meander from black metal tremolo-picked riffing, to crawling, psychedelic doom dirges, even sometimes featuring stretched-out sections that rely on filthy, droning guitars -heavy on the reverb, but never too heavy. Never feels forced or calculated, and what's more, the solos sometimes feel as if they've been improvised - to stunning results.

I'm enjoying this quite a bit, and I think readers of this blog will as well. You can check out the band's website here, and you can download the music at their bandcamp page, here.